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From: info-vax@ucbvax.ARPA
Newsgroups: fa.info-vax
Subject: Re: SYSTEM login
Message-ID: <5066@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 25-Feb-85 12:48:42 EST
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.5066
Posted: Mon Feb 25 12:48:42 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Feb-85 06:37:58 EST
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.ARPA
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
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From: Jerry Leichter <Leichter@YALE.ARPA>

    Can the default username for system initialization be changed somehow?
    This would allow *not* having a SYSTEM account for someone to try and break 
    into.  The way I see it now, you *must* have a SYSTEM account with full 
    privileges.
    
    _H*
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This hardly seems worth the trouble.  Put an 8-character, randomly chosen
password on SYSTEM and you are safe as you are likely to get.

If you really feel that you want to do this, you might try setting the
SYSTEM account DISUSER.  I doubt the startup job goes through any of the
normal login procedures, so it should not be affected.  (I'd do this on
a removable pack, just to be sure I could put the world back together if
I failed.)  That should keep people frustrated....though how it differs
from a good password is beyond me.  (User tries to get in.  Whether SYSTEM
exists and he has the wrong password, or it doesn't exist, or it exists,
he has the right password, but it is DISUSER'ed, he gets the same error
message.  How is one more effective than the other?)

Also, there are other standard accounts - FIELD and DECNET come to mind.

Plus, it's usually a trivial matter to find out the names of a couple of
users on any system.  Or guess that SMITH or JOHNSON is probably out there
somewhere.
							-- Jerry
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